UK Immigration Status Check Mandatory For Landlords

United Kingdom, 1^st July: It has become mandatory for all landlords in the UK to check the immigration status of their tenants.

Immigration status check mandatory for UK tenants—Immigrants living in the UK as tenants will be facing additional fees from their landlords with effect from September this year. This has been revealed by the latest UK immigration norms.

<blockquote> The UK immigration status of tenants will be required to be checked by their landlords with effect from September this year. </blockquote>

The ‘Right to rent’ scheme will be becoming effective in the month of September this year.

Fine for tenants who are undocumented immigrants—The important thing to be kept in mind is that the scheme will be initially launched in some UK areas. Under this scheme, renting of accommodation to undocumented immigrants will lead to fines for landlords in the UK.

If the landlords do not make sure to check the immigration status of their tenants in the UK, then they will have to face big fines. As per the details, £3000 will be the maximum fine amount for landlords not verifying the immigration status of their tenants.

This fine will be for renting the property to each tenant by the landlord in the UK. Any undocumented immigrant who is rented property in the UK will make the landlord liable for such fine.

Within a period of eight months, the trial of ‘right to rent’ scheme will be launched in West Midlands. Letting agents and landlords in the West Midlands(Walsall, Dudley, Birmingham and Wolverhampton) will be checking the visa status and nationality of their tenants.

Scheme to lead to discrimination towards immigrants—Meanwhile, it is being alleged that the new “Right to Rent’ scheme will lead to discrimination against immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants living in the UK.

So, immigrants in the UK will find it more difficult to get property on rent following new UK immigration checks for tenants becoming effective in September this year. That’s because landlords will be trying to rent homes to white tenants only to avoid any UK immigration red tape.

Move bad for the landlords—Landlords in the UK who don’t have requisite skills or the knowledge for checking the immigration status of the aspiring tenants will face unfair burden due to new UK immigration norms.

Legitimate landlords will be hindered from providing safe homes to the undocumented immigrants in the UK.

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Harleen Kaur

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